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Both the current and former top commanders of the Canadian military are now under investigation for alleged misconduct on the job.
Weeks after he stepped down as chief of the defence staff, General Jonathan Vance was hit with allegations of inappropriate conduct involving women in the Forces who were lower in rank than him. The military police are investigating. One of the women, Major Kellie Brennan, told Global News about what she says is a problem that permeates the military. Gen. Vance has denied the allegations.
Now his successor as chief of the defence staff, Admiral Art McDonald, is also being investigated. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the admiral has voluntarily stepped aside while allegations of “misconduct” are being looked into. There were no further details about what Adm. McDonald is being accused of.
Retired Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps told the Commons defence committee earlier this week that the military has not done nearly enough to address problems of sexual misconduct, which she revealed in a bombshell 2015 report.
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TRUDEAU TODAY
From the Prime Minister’s official agenda for today: “The Prime Minister will speak with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed.”
Geoffrey York, The Globe and Mail’s Africa Bureau Chief, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, writes on Mr. Trudeau’s meeting with the Ethiopian leader:
“The virtual meeting with the Ethiopian leader will be a tough test of Mr. Trudeau’s diplomatic skills. A year ago, in their last meeting, it was easy enough for Mr. Trudeau to bask in the warm glow of Mr. Abiy’s recent Nobel Peace Prize and his reputation as a democratic reformer. But now, after nearly four months of brutal war in the Tigray region, and after a series of other internal conflicts and mass killings in Ethiopia, it will be difficult for Mr. Trudeau to ignore the reports of atrocities and abuses. The international community will expect Mr. Trudeau to push hard for humanitarian access to Tigray and to express concern about the human rights issues. The large Ethiopian diaspora in Canada will also be watching closely. He has to find a delicate balance, and the test will be difficult.”
Mr. York also reported this week on hunger and atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
THE HEADLINES
The House of Commons’ special committee on Canada-China relations has issued a new report calling for the government to work with allies to sanction Chinese officials responsible for the crackdown on Hong Kong. The report also urges the government to more carefully monitor what China’s diplomats are doing in Canada.
The federal government was back in court Thursday to seek a fourth extension to the court-imposed deadline for expanding access to medical assistance in dying.
Newly released government documents paint a stark picture of how quickly Canada’s pandemic early warning system fell into decline before COVID-19 hit. E-mails between staff at the Prime Minister’s Office show how alerts issued by the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, dropped precipitously from 2009 to 2019, when key parts of the operation were curtailed.
The Canadian government is “actively considering” creating a registry of foreign agents similar to ones in Australia and the United States in order to shed light on individuals paid to influence the country’s political process on behalf of other states.
The Alberta government will release a budget on Thursday that will reveal the ruin left by the COVID-19 pandemic and an oil price crash a year ago as the province lays out a plan to piece its finances back together. The United Conservative Party government has already given up on a promise to balance the budget before the next election in 2023, though Thursday’s fiscal plan is expected to continue to push policies designed to trim costs and stoke economic growth.
Seven of the largest law firms in the country have signalled they are willing to share gender wage-gap data for research purposes, similar to what firms in the United States and Britain have been doing for years.
Scientists who are mounting the largest independent study of vaccine safety in Canadian history are seeking the participation of hundreds of thousands of people across the country – including those who have not yet been vaccinated for COVID-19 – to get the information they need.
And a remote First Nation in Northern Ontario has declared a state of emergency for its off-reserve members in Thunder Bay after an outbreak among them in the city, where COVID-19 infections continue to surge.
OPINION
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on Justin Trudeau and Big Pharma: “Last month, as delivery delays plagued Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked if he had contacted the chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc. to express his dismay or offer solutions to speed up supplies. His non-answer spoke volumes about his own government’s improvisation concerning a file that should be its all-consuming priority.”
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on vaccination readiness: “Compared with the world’s other wealthy countries, Canada’s vaccination rate is close to dead last. As of Wednesday, this country had given just 4.2 shots per 100 people. Israel, which like Canada has no domestic vaccine production, is at 88.8 shots per 100 people. The United Kingdom: 27.3 shots per 100. The United States is at 19.4. A small handful of European countries started February behind Canada; all have since jumped well ahead. Norway, which trailed on Feb. 1, has now given nearly twice as many shots per capita as Canada.”
Allison Hanes (Montreal Gazette) on the Coalition Avenir Québec turning the tables on anti-racism critics: “Never judge a person by the colour of their skin. That would be racist. This is the message implicit in Premier François Legault’s appointment of a new cabinet minister responsible for the fight against racism in Quebec, who is raising a few eyebrows over his … qualifications. Benoit Charette, as his name would suggest, is a white francophone. The decision to make him the point man on how Black, Indigenous, people of colour and other racialized minorities are treated in Quebec would seem strange at first glance — clumsy even.”
David Dodge and Michael Horgan (The Globe and Mail) on fiscal anchors: “As Chrystia Freeland makes choices in her first budget as Finance Minister, two critical markers will come immediately in view: the deficit for the next fiscal year and the fiscal track for the medium term. The discussion about public deficits and debt globally is strikingly different today than a dozen years ago in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Then, with the first signs of recovery, major economies were intent on returning quickly to their traditional fiscal anchors – in Canada’s case, a balanced budget.”
Keith Baldrey (Global BC) on challenges facing British Columbia’s once-dominant BC Liberal Party: “Two announcements last week served as reminders of the deep political issues the BC Liberals face. First, the party announced that Andrew Wilkinson had finally resigned as party leader, which no doubt surprised many who thought he had already departed. Then, party MLA Ellis Ross appeared to have almost accidentally announced his candidacy for leader. News of this dribbled out in fits and starts and the way it was handled suggested he does not even have a team behind him.”
Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on whether Canada really needs a new partnership with a “crisis-ridden” America: “Even though it was President Joe Biden’s first major engagement with a foreign leader, his virtual summit with Justin Trudeau attracted little attention in the U.S. media. CNN was consumed by the Tiger Woods car crash. The network didn’t even bother to cut to Mr. Biden’s statement. The Washington Post put the story on page 14. It wrote off the bilateral meeting as ‘a symbolic rebooting of neighbourly relations.’ There’s nothing terribly unusual about this. Much to the chagrin of our prime ministers, greater priorities weigh on the presidents.”
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